There’s an established process to take you from writing a book to it reaching a reader’s hands, and it goes like this: submit to an agent > agent pitches book to publisher > publisher buys, prints and distributes the book. There’s more to it than that, obviously, but that’s the bare bones (and I’m ignoring the option of bypassing the agent step as although there’s a chance of getting a deal by going direct to a publisher, 0.0001% is zero in my book). From the moment you step outside of your story-in-progress to research your potential markets and study the process, you’re conditioned to believe that this is the only route to success (not your definition of success, mind you, but everyone else’s) and that failing to make it through this process is failure.

Fair enough. Money and celebrity – or lack of – seem to be the benchmarks for success in modern culture, so let’s assume the masses know something I don’t.

So what if you can’t make it through that process, and you’re stuck without an agent? Would you keep trying for a year? Of course. How about 10 years? Maybe. How about your whole life? What if the inability to get a deal on your first book is mentally holding you back from writing your second? Would you blow your entire career waiting for someone to give you a chance?

Or would you try something else?

The Past

I submitted Make a Move to 5 agents and publishers. These were people/companies who’d expressed a taste for the kind of work my book vaguely falls into, so I thought they’d be worth a try. As I’ve said before, Make a Move is a hard sell, and I targeted people I thought would give it more than the cursory look it needs to understand why it exists. I got stock rejections from all but one of them. I was ok with that, as I’d prepared myself for that rejection, but I admit I was disappointed. A bit.

About that time, people were arriving in my life who helped me break out of that linear mindset, and stimulated me to look at other options. Readjust my perspective. Break out of the box. I recalibrated my definition of success and what my goals were in getting Make a Move out. I looked at the money in my bank account, decided that having more of it wasn’t going to make me any happier, and thought hard about what I needed from my writing. I needed connections. Ideas. Human interaction. Life.

And all of those things were there for the taking, without needing a single nod of approval from anyone in “the process”.

It’s been two months since I released Make a Move, and in that time I’ve met more cool people than I have in the previous two years. I’ve created relationships. I’ve given people ideas. I’ve changed.

The Present

I received some comments today that implied that I’m nothing more than a vanity publisher, and that my book, by definition, must bite. It’s not the first time. What was scary to witness though, was that the negativity was aimed at myself, and another writer, who have both put out work online for free download, and who are both “out there”, and that it originated from a number of unpublished, unrepresented, unfinished writers. It’s the internet, and we all know the joke about arguing on the internet, so I left it, withdrew with my honour intact, and thought about what I’d learned. And what I learned is this:

People need the validation the system gives them, as they’re too scared to say “my work is good enough to sell”. They cling to that system, even when it steals their productive years from them. Sure, the system keeps mediocre or even terrible books off the shelves, but there are more good writers than there are publishing slots, so good writers – good people – are going to be left behind.

The Future

I’m not turning my back on the system – I’d love to land a deal with a reputable publisher who could get me into the big retailers – but I’m not waiting around either. I’ll send some more submissions once I have time, but I know that establishing a readership is probably the only way I’ll find someone willing to give Make a Move a read with a view to taking it on. A lot of people dedicated to the process would call that arrogant; I call it self-aware. A lot of people would say I’ve given up; I say I’ve opened myself up to possibilities.

I’ve been thinking for some time that I’m too tuned-in to the internet and the ideas and opinions of its denizens, and today confirmed that. I’ve found a few good people online whose opinions I know I can trust, but aside from them, I’m going to tune out the noise . Take a step back and focus. Enjoy this new clarity.

I’m going to go non-linear for a while.